Harold Ray Ragsdale, 24 January 1939, Clarksdale, Georgia, USA. A prolific country pop writer and performer, Stevens novelty hits of the 70s and 80s illustrate the history of the fads and crazes of the era. He became a disc jockey on a local station at 15 and the following year recorded Five More Steps on the Prep label. Stevens first nonsense song, &
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Scott Davis, 21 January 1942, Lubbock, Texas, USA. Davis grew up with a love of country music but turned to rock n roll in 1955 when he saw Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly on the same show, an event referred to in his 1980 song Texas In My Rear View Mirror. Davis, who was already writing songs, learned the guitar and moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where he
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Seth Ward, 10 August 1928, near Plainview, Texas, USA. Deans mother, who was the familys only provider, ran a barbershop and as a boy, he picked cotton and worked on local farms. His mother taught him to play the piano when he was 10 years old and he taught himself guitar, accordion and harmonica as soon as he had access to the instruments. At 16, he began to stu
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Originally called the Country Cut-Ups, the Oak Ridge Boys were formed in 1943 in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. They often performed at the atomic energy plant in Oak Ridge, where, in the midst of a war, their optimistic gospel songs were welcomed, and hence they were renamed the Oak Ridge Quartet. They recorded their first records in 1947 with a line-up featuring leader Wally Fowl
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William Fries, 15 November 1928, Audubon, Iowa, USA. Fries loved country music as a child, but had a successful career in advertising in Omaha, culminating in a 1973 campaign for the Metz bread company that involved a truck-driver called C.W. McCall: It was just a name that came out of thin air,  says Fries. He had done the voice-over himself and developed the ch
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25 October 1941, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, A big-voiced interpreter of rock ballads, with a reputation as a high-profile feminist and campaigner on social issues, Reddy came from a showbusiness family. She was a child performer and had already starred in her own television show before winning a trip to New York in an Australian talent contest in 1966. There, an appeara
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26 March 1949, Inglewood, California, USA. Lawrence was a well-known actress in 1973 when she recorded The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia. Lawrence studied dance and played piano and guitar as a child. By the time she attended college she had joined folk groups, including the Young Americans. Due to her resemblance to comic actress Carol Burnett, a meeting
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14 December 1932, Colt, Arkansas, USA, d. 25 July 1995, Hammond, Louisiana, USA. One of Richs country hits was Life Has Its Little Ups And Downs, and the ups and downs of his own life were dramatic. Richs parents were cotton farmers and he heard the blues from the pickers and gospel music from his parents, as his father sang in a choir and his mother
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Robert John Pedrick Jnr., 1946, Brooklyn, New York, USA. In 1958, when he was aged 12, Bobby Pedrick (as he was named on record then) charted with his debut White Bucks And Saddle Shoes. He recorded without success on Shell in 1960 and Duel in 1962 and fronted Bobby And The Consoles on Diamond a year later. As a soloist again, this high tenor recorded on MGM in 1
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Allan Copelon, 30 November 1924, Chicago, Illinois, USA, d. 21 November 1973, Los Angeles, California, USA. Allan Sherman enjoyed a lucrative career during the 60s with his self-penned parodies of popular and folk songs. After his parents 1930 divorce, Sherman lived with his mother and attended 21 different schools in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Miami. After att
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Female vocalist Toni Tennille (8 May 1940, Montgomery, Alabama, USA) co-wrote the 1972 rock musical Mother Earth. When it was staged in Los Angeles, the house band included keyboards player Daryl Dragon (b. 27 August 1942, Los Angeles, California, USA), the son of conductor Carmen Dragon. The duo teamed up romantically and professionally, and toured as part of the Beach Boys
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